


take me home

by whisperedwords



Series: YingYang!verse [3]
Category: National Football League RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - This Happened, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, M/M, Post-Playoffs Blues, Sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-16 00:55:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9266561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whisperedwords/pseuds/whisperedwords
Summary: Regular season losses aren’t—weren’t—like this, didn’t do this to him, and it feels like a punch to the gut when Odell realizes that, at least on some level, Eli blames himself for all of this.Allof it. Everything. Dropped pass after dropped pass—all on his shoulders, and fuck,fuck, if losing felt like a knife to the heart, then this realization must be the slow and painful way it inches out of his chest, because it hurts so much that Odell can’tbreathe.





	

**Author's Note:**

> so the giants lost last night and honestly i'm still messed up over it. this was my way of dealing with it. title from [this instagram post from yesterday](https://www.instagram.com/p/BPAW8YvAzZI). i swear to god, i can't be the only person who sees just how much obj loves eli (/how much they love each other), right? right???

They lose.

The New York Football Giants, roaring into the playoffs at 11-5, shatter in Lambeau and make a mess everywhere. 38-13. A standstill in Wisconsin. The silence in the locker room is deafening as they walk in. No one really knows what to say. ( _You blew it_ seems a little inappropriate, but the way everyone’s shoulders are hanging, it’s clear that that’s what’s being thought.)

Odell can feel the defeat in his bones start to rattle—that’s not going to stop any time soon, and it’s only a matter of hours before the anger comes full force. (He’s worked on this—he has, he _has_ , he’s been practicing the art of breathing and stretching and learning to swallow the bad with the good like a pill, forcing it down his throat and letting it choke him into silence.) But tonight is different—tonight is going to hurt for a long, long time.

McAdoo doesn’t say much in the way of consolation—nor should he, frankly, because they don’t deserve it after falling apart on all three phases in the moment it mattered most. When he leaves the room, lets the players peel away the defeat from their sweat-soaked skin, Odell looks to his left. There’s Eli, stoic as ever—but the look in his eyes is haunting. Defeat never looks good on anyone (something he’s prided himself on throughout his career, being a pretty-boy and being a winner, something he jokes about with Jarvis and AB and his other receiver friends) but on Eli it’s breathtakingly sad. All of a sudden, Odell can see every night that Eli spent awake clear on his quarterback’s face. Every missed route has become a shadow under his eyes, which blink back tears as he hangs up his shoulder pads for the last time this season. Every miscommunication has become a weight on his back that drags his shoulders down. Regular season losses aren’t— _weren’t_ —like this, didn’t do this to him, and it feels like a punch to the gut when Odell realizes that, at least on some level, Eli blames himself for all of this. _All_ of it. Everything. Dropped pass after dropped pass—all on his shoulders, and fuck, _fuck_ , if losing felt like a knife to the heart, then this realization must be the slow and painful way it inches out of his chest, because it hurts so much that Odell can’t _breathe_.

As if he knows he’s being watched, Eli turns to meet his wide receiver’s gaze. That’s the final blow. That’s it. Eli gives him a sad, watery smile, and Odell breaks down. The tears don’t wait for him to swipe them away, and he tries to steady his breathing as best as he can so he doesn’t start hyperventilating. He’s not the only one crying, of course—Shep is devastated on the other end of the locker room, and he’d started _on_ the field, and DRC’s been rubbing at his eyes since they walked in—but it doesn’t change the feeling of anguish that washes over 13, with his quarterback’s eyes on him trying to make things better. He let Eli down. He let his team down. He feels like he’s drowning in his failure.

(And it _is_ failure. Eli won’t say it, Mac won’t say it, but he failed to show up for the most important game of their season so far.)

There’s not much to say, really. Eli’s cheeks are wet with tears, too, but he pulls Odell in for a hug without a second thought. He needs it. _Both_ of them need it, really—Odell’s hands grasp onto Eli’s soaked-through undershirt with his life, and Eli presses his face into the puff of Odell’s hair. They stand there for a little while. Odell cries into Eli’s chest, and while it’s not the first time something like this has happened, it’s the first time they’ve both laid themselves bare like this in the process. He can feel Eli’s lips on his scalp, driving the stake further into his heart. It takes all his self-control to reel in the howling despair in his chest, and finally, he extracts himself from the arms of his anchor. Their eyes meet, and in that half-second moment, before they have to part ways for press conferences and interviews and photography, Odell knows how tonight is going to end. Tangled limbs in a chilly hotel bedroom, bruises he’ll feel for hours littering his neck, the weight of shame clinging to his hands even as they cradle the most beautiful thing they’ve ever held.

Eli squeezes his shoulder in silent reassurance before he starts to get dressed, put his suit back on—the imprint of his hand feels like a burn on Odell’s skin. It crackles again under the spotlight, and he can’t say “ _This was my fault_ ” on camera because he knows he’ll cry (again) if he does, so he sticks to the basics— _we_ couldn’t keep up, _we_ missed opportunities, _we_ can do better. He compliments the Packers despite the bitterness in his mouth, and he walks off-stage. There’s nothing more to it, really—what else can he say or do that will change things? Nothing. (His fist throbs from the punch he threw at the wall before. It’s odd, the way his mind has so easily fixated on all the things hurting him over the course of an hour—traitorous mind of a traitorous teammate who didn’t pull his weight. _It’s only fair_ , he thinks halfheartedly.)

Odell doesn’t hang around and listen to Eli’s speech. He knows it’s going to hurt him, listening to the man he idolizes more than anyone take the fall for him. So he puts on his headphones, he climbs onto the bus, and he closes his eyes.

(He falls asleep before Eli gets on, and doesn’t notice when Eli slides into the seat next to him. He gently slips his fingers between Odell’s, soft enough to not wake the younger man.)

* * *

They arrive at their hotel after what feels like a hundred-year bus ride, and everyone files out in almost complete silence. It still feels the same as it did when the clock went to zero—is there anything else that really can be said? Odell feels for his hotel room key in the pocket of his jacket and trudges up two flights of stairs before reaching his floor. The keycard swipes in and out with a dull beep, and as he takes a step through the threshold, the evening collapses on top of him. He’s too tired to cry, now—it’s just emptiness that’s left, digging its way into his stomach and his heart. He flops onto his bed face-first and lets his bags fall off his shoulders onto the floor. It doesn’t matter. He’ll move it later, once he feels the motivation to lift his head from the shitty beige comforter.

The motivation to get up arrives about 20 minutes into a withdrawn self-roasting session. A few light knocks at his door bring Odell back to the land of the living, and he takes a deep, steadying breath. He’s pretty sure he knows who it is, and honestly? He’s not sure if he’s ready for whatever will happen next. He pushes himself up off the bed and moves towards the door. His hand hesitates on the knob—is he even worth the time, now? Is he even worth Eli crossing a hotel floor for?

“Odell.” His voice is quiet, but it pierces through the door in a way that makes Odell seriously think his quarterback can read minds. How does he always _know_? With another deep breath, he twists the door open.

Odell knew he would be standing there right about now, but his breath still catches a little in his throat, watching Eli watch him. It’s quiet that they’re not used to navigating, now—playoff quiet. Odell isn’t sure he likes it. He nods his head, ushers Eli into the room with one hand in an attempt to be lighthearted. He enters with a small smile, almost as if he’s grateful that Odell would do even this. (And— _grateful_? The thought sends Odell’s brain sputtering. Eli Manning, two-time Super Bowl-and-MVP winning quarterback (ouch) being grateful that _Odell_ would see _him_? He wants to laugh at the thought. Odell doesn’t think he’s ever been graced by such a wonderfully important presence in his life, and that presence is trying to shrink his shoulders in humbleness? God. What an Eli thing to do.)

“Hey.” It’s all Odell can think to say—a mildly short-circuited brain will do that, he thinks afterwards. Eli smiles a toned-down-but-still-dumb half-smile, starts to move towards Odell in a way they’ve gotten too good at lately. Week after week since about week 12, they’ve been spending their nights together. Sometimes, it’d been practice related—mostly, it was about Eli’s fingers scrabbling for purchase against OBJ’s toned back in the empty Metlife showers. (In a game focused on adrenaline, it helps to find ways to access it through any way possible, Eli had said once, between searing kisses. Odell had stopped, pulled away with a grin. “ _Yeah?_ ” “ _Helps when there’s chemistry, of course_ ,” and they’d continued.)

Eli’s voice brings him back to the present. Again. “Hey.” His voice is still soft, and Odell wants nothing more than to fall into his arms and just forget about everything. He wants to so _badly_ , but after this—after _this_? No, he doesn’t deserve the luxury of affection, of warmth. Not tonight.

He walks back to the bed, sinks down onto it. “I’m sorry.” _For losing my cool in the locker room_. _For ruining our Super Bowl chances_. _For letting you down_. It’s fill-in-the-blank, at this point, and each option hurts Odell more than the last. The threat of tears begins to surface again. Frustratedly, he swipes at his eyes in advance, not looking up at Eli. He feels the mattress bend beneath the other man’s weight as he sits down next to him, but still won’t turn his head. Odell is too afraid it’ll happen like it did in the locker room, where Eli’s eyes will be glossy with tears and reopen the wound in his chest that, up until this moment, had started to ache a tiny bit less. If he looks up now, the knife goes back in. Maybe he’ll ask Eli to go, so he doesn’t break either of their hearts tonight.

“Odell, look at me.” He can’t, he can’t, he _can’t_ —“Please.” Eli’s voice breaks. The knife starts to press slowly into his chest again, but if Eli is hurting, who is he to look away? He deserves to let go after what’s happened. Odell blinks a few times, rubs a hand over his face, and then looks up at his quarterback. Eli takes a breath, shakily exhales. “This isn’t all on you. I—you can’t blame yourself for all this. I know you want to. I know you feel like you failed. But you—” He pauses, briefly, searching for the words as if they’re hovering around his head. “You carried this team so far, O. _So_ far. You can’t keep forcing it all on your back. It’s not fair to you, or to the rest of us.” Odell starts to shake his head, but Eli takes his face in both hands and squeezes lightly. They’ve locked eyes, now. “We won _eleven games_. You were our entire offense for an entire season. Please. You can’t blame yourself.”

“Eli—”

“I’m proud of you. _Fuck_ , Odell, I am so proud of you and what you’ve done. How you’ve grown. You’re a Giant through and through. I love you.” His hands don’t move. Odell feels his heart in his throat, strangling him quietly. “I love you. Shit, I love you so much, and I—I don’t even know what to do about it. I don’t know what I would do without you. You’re everything to me. You really are, and I know that things are complicated and that you’re _you_ and I’m _me_ but I. I love you.”

It’s quiet for a moment, between the two of them—but it’s not playoff quiet, not anymore. The air has gone electric. Odell feels dizzy, like he’s being pulled in a thousand different directions but somehow they’re all Eli.

“You love me?” The air rushes from his lungs as he asks—he knows the answer, can see it plainly on Eli’s face, but the mere thought of being loved by someone like Eli sends his brain short-circuiting all over again. Eli nods at his question. The smile that splits Odell’s face is one like no other, expelling the clouds of anguish for a moment, looking at this man that he loves—

And, oh god, does he love Eli. He can’t find his voice, right now, so he settles for a kiss, leaning into Eli, chastely brushing his lips to the other man’s in lieu of responding verbally. _Eli Manning loves him_. They part, briefly, and Eli’s hands finally fall away from Odell’s face. His eyes flicker down to his lips, dark and beautiful as ever, and so Odell kisses him again, harder this time—a kiss of thanks, of desperation, of desire. Eli is so easy, so very easy to fall into, and it’s nothing like the way the tabloids paint him, all emotionless and unwavering. Kissing Eli is like catching a pass from him—that is, to say, it’s magical every time, being so in sync with him that they can sink backwards into the pillows at the same angle and not break their kiss for a moment. Eli’s hands have peeled away Odell’s jacket, found their way under his shirt, and Odell’s fingers are fumbling at the buttons of Eli’s dress-shirt in an attempt to not tear the garment off altogether. Layer after layer is shed. Their clothes slip off the comforter and spill into a pile on the floor, next to the discarded luggage Odell never got around to moving, and here in this tiny hotel room in the freezing cold Wisconsin night, the two of them spar between the sheets. Eli’s softness begins to subside as his kisses become rougher, more passionate—they flip so that Eli is hovering over Odell, and his body is warm as it rolls up against Odell’s but the hunger, the drive, it sends chills down the younger man’s spine. They kiss and they fuck until every muscle between them is sore and tired; the clock reads 4am when both are finally spent. Odell has his head leaned against Eli’s chest, and Eli’s hand has found its way to Odell’s face again, tenderly pressed to his jaw, though getting heavier as his eyes begin to close.

“I love you too,” Odell finally says, his voice half-muffled against Eli’s heated skin. Eli doesn’t sway, and though he’s on the verge of falling asleep, manages to find the humor in it all after their long night.

“Oh, _after_ the orgasms? Okay.” He chuckles lowly to himself as Odell whacks him, but it dies away as sleep starts to take its final hold on the two of them.

“’m serious, E. I love you. Thank you.”

“For what?”

Odell’s sleepy brain doesn’t really know what to say. _Everything up to this point?_ He probably already knows that. “Believing in me.”

It’ll do.

**Author's Note:**

> if you have any Emotions(tm) about these two PLEASE DONT HESITATE TO HIT ME UP ON [TUMBLR DOT COM](http://grantgustin.tk)


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